"THE BEAUTY Of THE BOTTLE"

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cheezydemon

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This is not a testament against kegging.

Tonight, I am awash in beer. No, I am not "druck" (seems to be the term lately) I just have a lot of homebrew at my disposal. Quite an improvement from christmas. I gave away most of what I had stored....but not all.
No, my friends, the beauty of the bottle, is simply this:

I have a lot of freshly brewed beer. I have a Helles Munich, my second AG, that is spot on!

I have a Gyle whatever..actually the second runnings from the helles that I fortified with some extra light DME and some extra hops. Lovely!!!!

I have a third "session" beer at my disposal, a 3 lb bag of extra light DME, 2 lbs of sugar, and 3 ounces of cascade hops, fermented with irish ale yeast (wl). A winner to be sure! A staple of mine as a session beer.

But what am I sipping as I write all of this? which of my myriad of light to extra light beers am I sipping? NONE.

I grabbed one of the eight "Dave's Imperial Stout"s that I have stored on my beer shelf in the basement. Damn if it doesn't taste lovely, amid all of this lagered helles and light DME.

And that, my friends, is the beauty of bottling. I can't see taking a corny out of the basemant 1 year later and saying "hey, I think I will have the last 16 ounces of this brew, the dregs, that I made 13 months ago!"

To each their own, but bottling will always be at least half of my arsenal.
 
Even though I keg now I still bottle quite a bit. I love variety and I only have a 2 tap kegerator with no possibility of expansion. I bottled a nice IPA just this evening. :mug:
 
I have future plans of kegging (just scored a chest freezer on EBay for $26.19) and I was planning on larger batches. Instead of 5 gallons why not 8 or 10 and maybe two boils? I was thinking keg half and bottle the rest. Not an issue yet though............ I don't have any kegs and have not even seen the freezer

just like most of y'all
... got a homebrew kit
... started with extract
... extract with steeping grains
... partial mash brewing
... all grain brewing
... scored a cheap chest freezer
... (to be continued)
 
For the first time ever, I have 7 kegs dispensing at the same time, 5 in the chest freezer and two just sitting in my garage (40-50 ambient) with picnic faucets. I've got a couple bottles of whatever in the basement but ah, nevermind them.

Three things I know I will bottle at least half of...
5 gallon batch of 1-year applejack barrel aged mead.
5 gal Flanders Red Merlot Barrel aged.
5 gal Barley wine (brewing soon).

These would occupy kegs FOREVER around here.
 
I like bottling the last 2 gallons of the 12 gallon batches I run.
If I ever need something portable or my C02 empties out at a inconvenient time I have a well conditioned backup.

p.s. if you write the date on the cap on the pet bottle when you bottled it helps

Cheers
BeerCanuck
 
I really enjoy bottling because I enjoy variety. Granted, I'm happy to drink a bunch of the same beer if that's what there is... thanks to bottling I don't have to in my house!
 
I definitely see the appeal of bottling for the purposes of variety. Using the BMBF, I can quite easily bottle a 6-pack or 12-pack (or whatever) from a keg. Though I haven't been using it long enough to have built up many varieties yet, I have high hopes of making this a habit on every keg, and keeping my hands off the bottles long enough that I can keep a fair number of bottles of a large variety of beers around at all times. Though I love kegging for the simplicity, only having 2 taps limits me in terms of variety, so I think a little bottling will help pick up the slack.

Anything I can do to limit the amount of commercial beer I buy (which usually happens when I'm a little tired of what I have on tap) will result in more money that can go to brewing instead. Especially since the local beer store warned me that, for example, DFH90 will be jumping up to around $15 a 4-pack here soon due to the hop prices :(
 
I would rather bottle just for the variety, ease of storage, transportation, etc. But, after bottling my first batch of Cider, I though "Wow, what a PITA." and decided that I'll be going to kegging as soon as I get my basement/bar/brewery finished (in a couple years).

However, when I bottled my second batch of cider, I rather enjoyed the experience. Probably because I got to drink some of my first batch (8.2%abv) while I was doing it. Now I'm wondering how I will feel by the time I finish my bar/brewery.

Time will tell I guess, but I think I will always bottle at least part of my brews.
 
gruntingfrog said:
When you keg, there's nothing saying you can't bottle the last gallon and store it instead of just floating every keg.
Or do like my best friend suggested to me. Brew 6 gallons. prime the batch with sugar, keg 5 gallons, and bottle the rest.:mug:
 
Bottling from a keg sounds easier, is there any drawback? Do you have to slightly overcarb to account for the unpressurized headspace in the bottle?

Is there a significant difference in flavor between a bottle that is sugar primed and aged and a bottle that is force carbed and then aged? Very few of us may have done this side by side comparison, but it doesn't hurt to ask.
 
I forgot to add that one thing I really like about the idea of kegging, is being able to force carb. I'd love to be able to kill off my yeast, backflavor, and force carb when making cider.
 
I've found bottling a 5 gallon batch with liter bottles, a gallon jug, and the rest with 12 oz bottles is the way to go. It gives you the variety everyone really wants and largely reduces the 'task' of filling 52 bottles. The 1 gallon jug is good to start those long nights with buddies, liter bottles good for a relaxed night and 12 oz bottles for everything in between.
 
VA Brew said:
I've found bottling a 5 gallon batch with liter bottles, a gallon jug, and the rest with 12 oz bottles is the way to go. It gives you the variety everyone really wants and largely reduces the 'task' of filling 52 bottles. The 1 gallon jug is good to start those long nights with buddies, liter bottles good for a relaxed night and 12 oz bottles for everything in between.
That's actually a pretty good idea. I don't think I'd go with a gallon jar, but maybe the liter bottles. Now for my noob question, "Do you have to make any adjustments to the amount of priming sugar, or head space when you use larger bottles?"
 
No! Headspace should be proportionally different due to the size of the container, but no adjustment of priming is necessary.
 
cheezydemon said:
Bottling from a keg sounds easier, is there any drawback? Do you have to slightly overcarb to account for the unpressurized headspace in the bottle?

The only thing you need to watch out for is infection from your hose/bottle filler/tap setup. On most kegging system they tend to be problem areas for that sort of thing.. open shut, open ****, etc with a nice, often-wet-with-beer area in the tap spout. So prior to bottling for storage, you'd want to pull off the liquid out, sanitize the post, quick disconnect, hose, tap and filler.

As for loosing a bit of carbonation for the headspace you shouldn't notice it (probably somewhere around 0.1 vol's C)2, less if you purge)
 
I have a kegerator and 1 corny keg. I haven't used it on my last 3 batches. I bottled them all. I like bottles, I like having bottles. I like looking at all the bottles. I don't mind cleaning the bottles. It takes me 30 minutes to clean and sanitize 2 cases of 12 ozs.

I used my corny keg...had a leak and lost all my CO2 and in the process lost my love for the keg. I had issues the whole time using the keg, so it's back to bottles for me. Don't flame...I like bottles.
 
That is kind of what I am afraid of. It sounds like a mild PITA to keep co2 on hand. Probably not, but that is why I am not jumping in with wild abandon.
 
cheezydemon said:
That is kind of what I am afraid of. It sounds like a mild PITA to keep co2 on hand. Probably not, but that is why I am not jumping in with wild abandon.
It's really not a big deal. I only use my CO2 to dispense (no force carbing here) and I'm at 12 kegs so far on my 5lbs tank, that's a lot of beer! I'm totally pro-bottle though so don't think I'm trying to convert you or anything. I still bottle more beer than I keg.

Like any closed system you need to make sure you don't have leaks, but that is easy enough.
 
cheezydemon said:
That is kind of what I am afraid of. It sounds like a mild PITA to keep co2 on hand. Probably not, but that is why I am not jumping in with wild abandon.
The CO2 will last a long time. I had a 5lb tank and served double digit 1/4 and 1/6 barrel commercial kegs from it.

It wasn't until I hooked it to a corny keg that all my precious co2 leaked into the atmosphere. dang disconnects... but don't let that stop you from kegging. It is definitely easier and cooler.

But I like bottles.
 
I like the "ceremony" of opening a bottled beer.

I'll always keep my house beers on tap and bottle a few for “excursions”.

Any bigger or more special beers…I’ll go ahead and keg, but bottle off a large batch for storage. I haven’t gone straight from secondary to bottle for 10 months…but I have about 5 cases of various beers lying around. I think the exception will be the RIS-888. Straight to bottles with that monster.

I guess for me, the bigger the beer (hops, malt, ABV…whatever), the more likely it is that the majority is going into bottles to be savored more slowly.

I wish I could make a rule to hide a sixer of every batch for 6 months to enjoy a trip down memory lane.
 
Exactly BierMuncher, I have used packing tape to try and make a "time Capsule" of a variety of brews in a box. It works to an extent, but eventually I get out the box cutter a lot sooner than I meant to!
 
Just had to re-visit this thread. Even as I embark on kegging, I opened a forgotten about bottle from 8 months ago. Ahhhh!

I must remember to save at least a sixer of every batch. No Joke!
 
Got love the portability and convenience of the well conditioned naturally carbonated bottled batch.

Cheers cheezydemon:mug:
BeerCanuck
 
Just had to re-visit this thread. Even as I embark on kegging, I opened a forgotten about bottle from 8 months ago. Ahhhh!

I must remember to save at least a sixer of every batch. No Joke!

+1.

I have a 13 month old bottle or porter. My last bottle, from my first kegged beer.

I don't know what the heck I'm waiting for. But those keepsake bottles do offer more ceremony than just a pull on the tap.
 
Bottling from a keg sounds easier, is there any drawback? Do you have to slightly overcarb to account for the unpressurized headspace in the bottle?

Is there a significant difference in flavor between a bottle that is sugar primed and aged and a bottle that is force carbed and then aged? Very few of us may have done this side by side comparison, but it doesn't hurt to ask.
Did anyone answer this question. I read through the thread and did not see a direct answer. This has been my #1 question about my kegging dreams.
 
Bottling from a keg is a lot easier IMO. I even kegged my batch of wine last night and bottled from it. When I got sick of filling bottles I set the keg aside and said I will finish later when I have more time. As far as flavor, that I can't comment on, but I HIGHLY doubt there is a difference.

One thing I am confused on is why long term storage everyone bottles. I keep a couple cases of bottles in a rotation and would rather have a keg tied up then the bottles. Maybe bottles are easier to come by, but a keg is only 15-20 so it isn't like your tying up a $50 vessel.
 
Bottling from a keg is a lot easier IMO. I even kegged my batch of wine last night and bottled from it. When I got sick of filling bottles I set the keg aside and said I will finish later when I have more time. As far as flavor, that I can't comment on, but I HIGHLY doubt there is a difference.

One thing I am confused on is why long term storage everyone bottles. I keep a couple cases of bottles in a rotation and would rather have a keg tied up then the bottles. Maybe bottles are easier to come by, but a keg is only 15-20 so it isn't like your tying up a $50 vessel.
Yeah I agree. Given all of this, when you bottle from a keg, do you have to do anything special or just make sure that is carbed via keg (with the proper CO2 for 7-10 days) before you bottle it. In other words, if the keg beer is fully carbed can you can just bottle it, fridge it, and drink it whenever you are thirsty?
 
Yeah I agree. Given all of this, when you bottle from a keg, do you have to do anything special or just make sure that is carbed via keg (with the proper CO2 for 7-10 days) before you bottle it. In other words, if the keg beer is fully carbed can you can just bottle it, fridge it, and drink it whenever you are thirsty?

Yes, as long as your careful while filling so that you don't let all the CO2 out while bottling.
 
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